The Soldier's Song (25 page)

‘That’s a very fine gun,’ Nightingale said, nodding into the corner, ‘it’s not standard issue is it?’

‘No, it’s not. As a matter of fact it’s an elephant gun.’

‘Oh, really?’ Nightingale nodded his head, as if that were the most normal thing in the world, and lapsed into silence once again.

Stephen tried to mask his smile.
D’you get many elephants around here?
God! Had he ever been that young?

‘You need them for the snipers.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Do you need a hand?’ Stephen asked Wilson, who was writhing around the bottle with his bony limbs and growing quite red in the face.

‘A corkscrew would be better,’ he gasped, but with a squeak and a pop the cork finally gave way and he poured the wine into three enamel mugs lined up on the windowsill.

‘A toast!’ Wilson began, handing around the mugs. Then he peered at the left breast of Stephen’s tunic, ‘Where the devil is it?’

‘It’s in my pocket.’

‘Give it here,’ he demanded, and Stephen flushed as he pulled the jewellery box from his pocket and handed it over. Wilson set down his mug and deftly pinned the cross onto his filthy tunic.

‘Here’s to you, Mr Ryan,’ he said and they drank. The wine tasted sweet and sharp in his clammy mouth. Then Nightingale leaned across and shook his hand again.

‘Congratulations, lieutenant.’

‘Thank you very much.’

Wilson drained his mug and picked up the bottle again. He emptied it between the three of them.

‘And here’s to Mr Devereux,’ he said, with a cold look in his eye.

Nightingale looked uncertainly between the two of them.

‘Any news?’ Stephen asked.

‘He’ll live.’

‘Then here’s to him!’ Nightingale blurted. The wine was telling already. Wilson gave Stephen an amused look and raised his mug.

‘Aye! Here’s to staying alive, Mr Nightingale.’

* * *

16 February 1917

I slept the sleep of the dead last night. I only had a couple of blankets on bare floorboards for my bed, but I could have slept on broken glass. I went ten hours straight through and, by God, I feel much better for it now! When I woke up, my tunic had been cleaned, the buttons polished, and the little purple and white ribbon sewn over the pocket. I felt like a new man when I put it on!

Devereux has been transferred to a hospital in England. It appears he will live, but he is to be discharged wounded – a cripple for the rest of his life. I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand I feel sorry for him – I wouldn’t wish it on anybody – but on the other hand, I’m glad he won’t be back.

Wilson went over to Battalion HQ this morning and he was in a right old taking when he came back. It appears I’ve become a bit too famous for my own good. What with Devereux kicking up a stink about me, and then Wilson recommending me for the MC – not to mention the business with the sniper – my name has become known to the divisional staff. This is not a good thing because being known to the brass hats makes you liable to be volunteered for the next hare-brained scheme they dream up.

In my case, the scheme is not one of their own devising, which is some comfort, at least. The Royal Engineers want to borrow officers for a big tunnelling job they have on near Messines. I don’t know the first thing about tunnelling, but my name has been put forward anyway.

Wilson is put out because he’s short of officers. He’s always been short of officers – as long as I’ve been here, we’ve never had a full complement – but if I go we really will be cutting it a bit fine. Gardner is all right, but Nightingale has literally only been here a day. The CO has promised him a couple more, but God knows where he thinks he might find them.

Of course, they can’t make me go. It puts Wilson in such a fix that I suggested I might refuse the posting, but he told me not to be a bloody fool. With over two years served I am due a promotion but I can kiss that goodbye if I say no. On the other hand, if I do take the posting then it will be a sort of dry run: I will be in command of a tunnelling company, which will make me an acting captain. Provided I don’t make a complete mess of it, that rank should be made permanent when I come back in a couple of months.

(Later)

Now it turns out that I leave tomorrow. I hadn’t expected it to be so quick, but I was summoned to HQ just before teatime and told to pack my kit and report for training to the Engineers first thing in the morning. Just like that. The battalion is going back up the line tonight, but I am left behind. I shook hands with everybody as they left and they all wished me luck. It surprised me how sad I was to see them go. I’ve only been here a few months, but it’s like leaving home all over again.

Silence. It was so intense that he could
hear
the candle burning, the wick hissing and spitting in its little pool of fat. It flickered on the pale, strained face of Sergeant Page, who knelt with his eyes closed and his whole being focused on the tubes that snaked out of his ears. He looked like he was listening for a heartbeat in the earth, and Stephen wondered how he could hear it over the thunder of his own. The others were as bad – all frozen with picks and shovels in their hands, all afraid to breathe, all rolling their eyes to the ceiling, waiting for it to come crashing down. They had all heard the voice too, as clear and crisp as if it had come from just down the tunnel. But speaking in German.

He raised his eyes to the roof. Ninety feet of earth held up with a few planks and boards. Ninety feet above, men were walking around in the open air; shells were falling, feet marching, guns pounding. But no sound penetrated this deep. The tunnel was as silent as the grave.

Don’t bloody say that.

He shivered and swallowed his nausea. The revolver was heavy in his hand, his palm sweaty on the grip, but the air was cold and clammy against his skin, and the miserable candle gave no warmth at all. It was stale too; they’d stopped the windjammer the moment they heard it, and now he could get the stink of fear.

If Page was afraid, he gave no sign. His face was like marble until he opened his eyes and the whites showed up the grime. Slowly, deliberately, he picked up the bell and moved it a foot to his left. He closed his eyes again to listen, and Stephen silently willed him to hurry up, for Christ’s sake. The muscles in his legs were burning with cramp, and he thought if he didn’t hear something soon, say something, feel something other than this awful bloody tension, he would explode in a fit.

But Page wouldn’t be rushed. He’d been a miner before the war and he knew what he was at. He looked like a miner too: short and stocky and hewn from stone himself. Stephen envied him his coolness. He could never be so at home down here – the best he could do was endure it and hope the men didn’t notice. But these alarms were testing his nerve. This was the third one in as many days. Yesterday it had been a prolonged scraping sound, like something being dragged through the earth, and the day before it was muffled footfalls thumping overhead.

He tried to console himself with the thought that nothing would happen as long as they could hear them. Page had been through all this before on the Somme, and he’d tried to reassure Stephen after the first alarm.

‘Ain’t nowt to worry about if tha can ’ear the buggers moving about,’ he explained in his hoarse Yorkshire whisper. ‘But when tha’ can’t ’ear ’em, that means they’ve scarpered, an’ probably lit thon fuses!’

That’s what they were all afraid of. Not a break-in – they were ready for that – but a countermine. No warning, just a shattering thump and the roof would come crashing down on top of them. Ninety feet of solid earth. He shuddered again.

Page’s stony features slowly gave way to a smile. He opened his eyes and shook his head.

‘Miles away,’ he said in a whisper that seemed like a shout after such profound silence.

Long-held breath came out in a gush. Men chuckled and clapped each other on the back while Stephen rolled back and stretched out his aching legs. Even his hand was cramped around the revolver, and he flexed his fingers, feeling the sweat cool between them. Christ, it was good to move again.

‘Come on then, lads. Let’s be having you,’ Page whispered, and some of the men crawled forward to the face of blue clay at the end of the tunnel. One of them settled his back against the wooden frame and took the spade from his mate. The others stood with their sandbags, ready to take the spoil.

Stephen felt Page looking at him. He had the keen-eyed look of a terrier at a burrow.

‘Carry on, sergeant,’ Stephen nodded, and the man at the frame kicked the spade into the earth with a loud snick. A curling sod of clay fell away from the wall and the tunnel grew a few inches longer, a few inches closer to the enemy line.

* * *

I5 April 1917

This is all supposed to be top secret, but the scale of it is so huge that I have to write these figures down or I will never believe them myself! I’ve been working underground for nearly two months, but I had no idea of the size of the project until I went to an officers’ meeting at General Plumer’s HQ yesterday.

Plumer himself was in charge of the meeting, and handed around some typed pages listing the progress on the various tunnels and the amount of explosives we plan to use. I must say, I was aware there were other tunnels, but I had no idea there were so many – and absolutely no inkling of the sheer tonnage of explosives we will be using. When I read my sheet I nearly put my hand up to ask if there was a typing error!

The fact is that my tunnel is only one of twenty-four that we are digging under the Messines Ridge. Twenty-four! And mine is by no means the largest! The scheme has been in the works for nearly two years now and should be completed in another two months.

Our objective is nothing less than the ridge itself. The Germans have held it almost since the start of the war and it gives us nothing but trouble. It dominates the entire sector, and from the top they have a clear view not only of our lines, but also of our rear areas and all our movements around Ypres. It is too easily defended to give us any hope of taking it with a frontal assault, so we are digging all these tunnels and filling them with nearly five hundred tons of explosives. Then, one fine morning in June, we’re going to detonate the explosives and blow the Messines Ridge right off the map.

This is all very easy to write down, but the reality is damned hard work. Even though we have finished digging, it will take thirty tons of ammonal to all the blasting galleries in our mine alone. That’s thirty tons in waterproof bags and cans that all have to be lowered down on ropes and then carried hundreds of yards to the minehead. Thirty tons! And then there is the wiring and tamping that still has to be done. Two months sounds like a long time, but I think it will be barely enough.

4 May 1917

The Boche blew a countermine against our tunnel yesterday. It was my day off, so I was above ground, but it still put the wind up me.

I saw the damage when I went down this morning. They blew in a small side gallery and caused a partial collapse in the main tunnel. It’s not very serious: we didn’t lose anybody and it only took a couple of hours to shore up the damaged section – but now there can be no doubt that they know exactly where we are.

The strain is intense. Every time I go underground I count the minutes to the end of my shift. I yearn for my days off. The weather is getting warmer and there is nothing better than to go to an
estaminet
and sit outside with a mug of beer and a plate of
pommes frites
. But always outside. This bloody tunnelling is making me claustrophobic.

I also yearn to go home. It’s just over a year since I left Ireland and I miss the place. I never thought I would be so sentimental about it – I certainly don’t think I was this homesick when I was in Turkey. I get letters every week from Lillian and Billy – and even the odd one from Joe — but sometimes they just make it worse. Every night I go to sleep thinking about Lillian, and when I wake up my first thought is how much I miss her. I can’t believe it’s a year since I saw her, and even though I look forward to her letters every day, I can’t wait to get back and see her again. But there’s no point crying about it. Even though I’m overdue for leave, there’s no hope of it coming before we blow the mine. Still, that’s only a few weeks off, and then I’ll be on my way. A fortnight in Ireland at the height of summer! Sometimes it’s all that keeps me going.

(Later)

We just put the last of the ammonal in the blasting gallery. It makes quite a sight – a bit like a cavernous greengrocer’s with all the bags and tins stretching away into the dark. I’m glad it’s done because the bloody stuff smells pretty foul and whenever we come up after a shift we always seem to reek of fish.

Everybody shook hands when the last bag went in. There could be no talking or cheering, of course, but I knew damned well what all the lads were thinking: They won’t know what hit them.

Even so, there wasn’t much time for celebration. Now we have to tamp the charge – meaning block up the tunnel with tons and tons of sandbags – and the whole lot has to be wired. This is a bit technical for a poor bloody infantry officer like me, so we are getting an RE major in to supervise. His name is Macmillan and he came down and walked the gallery with me this evening. On the way, we passed the site of the collapse and he stopped and whispered to me: ‘That looks fresh!’